View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by SHAREOK repository UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA GRADUATE COLLEGE FISH FACTS: DISCIPLINARY DEVELOPMENT OF ICHTHYOLOGY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE GRADUATE FACULTY in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of HISTORY OF SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY AND MEDICINE By Carolyn Scearce Norman, Oklahoma 2019 FISH FACTS: DISCIPLINARY DEVELOPMENT OF ICHTHYOLOGY IN NINETEENTH-CENTURY EUROPE A DISSERTATION APPROVED FOR THE HISTORY OF SCIENCE BY THE COMMITTEE CONSISTING OF Dr. Katherine Pandora, Chair Dr. Piers Hale Dr. Kerry Magruder Dr. Stephen Weldon Dr. Bruce Hoagland © Copyright by CAROLYN SCEARCE 2019 All rights Reserved. Table of Contents Abstract v Acknowledgements vi Introduction 1 Chapter 1 Nature’s Historian 17 Chapter 2 Comparative Anatomy and the Quest for Nature’s Order 66 Chapter 3 Zoological Catalogs at the British Museum 105 Chapter 4 The “First” Ichthyology Textbook 150 Chapter 5 Louis Agassiz and Fish Paleontology 201 Conclusion 266 Bibliography 278 iv Abstract This dissertation chronicles the disciplinary development of ichthyology through the work of three prominent nineteenth-century naturalists: Georges Cuvier (1769-1832), Louis Agassiz (1807-1873), and Albert Günther (1830-1914). Cuvier argued that historical knowledge was necessary in order to understand the development of the natural sciences, and he devoted a significant portion of his career writing and lecturing on the development of these sciences. Cuvier’s zoological studies focused on vertebrates, and he wrote foundational works in comparative anatomy and paleontology. He applied techniques from comparative anatomy and paleontology to the study of fish. Toward the end of his career Cuvier began working on a catalog of fish with the assistance of Achille Valenciennes (1794-1865). Cuvier died before this work was finished and Valenciennes continued the 22-volume series. Günther’s work followed the methodologies promoted by Cuvier. Over the course of his career he produced a catalog of fish that described over 8000 species of fish. He also wrote the first English language textbook on ichthyology. Agassiz studied under Cuvier during the final six months of Cuvier’s life. Between the early-1830s and mid-1840s Agassiz studied fish fossils in the museums of Europe, describing over 1600 species of extinct fish. Agassiz’s study of fish paleontology influenced his interpretation of the fossil record and reinforced his belief that the geological evidence did not support evolutionary theory. v Acknowledgements Over the course of my academic training I have had the good fortune to have been mentored by many exceptional teachers, but two people stand out as pivotal in shaping the path of my intellectual formation. While a graduate student at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Paul Dayton helped to foster my love of natural history. Here at the University of Oklahoma my committee chair, Katherine Pandora, helped me craft that interest into a means of shaping analytical and historical ideas into a narrative describing the way people learned about the natural world. I have reason to be grateful to so many of the faculty, staff and students within the department of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine at OU for providing the supportive environment I needed to finish a dissertation even while suffering from significant health issues. Two fellow graduate students, Margaret Gaida and Emily Margolis, have offered friendship and encouragement throughout my graduate studies at OU. I would like to extend special thanks to the members of my dissertation committee: Piers Hale, Kerry Magruder, Stephen Weldon and Bruce Hoagland. Each of the members of my committee provided thoughtful feedback at some point in the process of composing my dissertation. When it seemed like my dissertation might falter, Kerry Magruder and the staff at the Special Collections have provided me the haven I needed to finish my dissertation. I am grateful to my parents, who helped support me when I had to take time off work to finish my dissertation. And finally, I would like to thank my partner Robert and my friends Barbara and George who provided moral support when I needed it the most. vi INTRODUCTION Ichthyology: Organizing a Zoological Discipline For many years before I became a graduate student in the history of science, I had been contemplating the question of information overload. How do people transform a large, disorderly assortment of information into a coherent narrative? It has always been a serious question for me, since I suffer from learning disabilities that seriously impair my language processing speed and that lead me to be easily overwhelmed in physical locations that are either noisy, crowded, bright, or hyperkinetic. Once I started my studies in the history of science, I quickly discovered that the problem of information overload was not new to either our own time or our culture. I was impressed by Ann Blair's book Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age, which explored how scholars during the early modern period coped with the rapid expansion of knowledge after the invention of the printing press.1 Armed with this insight, I realized that considering how people attempted to solve this issue in the past might make it easier to understand how people might continue to address these issues in the future. As a former biology major, and as someone who had also worked for five years editing a scholarly database for the aquatic sciences, I wanted to address my research to an issue relevant to my previous studies. Furthermore, as a master’s degree student in Oceanography, I had developed an interest in marine conservation. I knew that in marine habitats the pressures of overfishing resulted in the decline of many species of fish, and that some were currently 1 Ann Blair, Too Much to Know: Managing Scholarly Information before the Modern Age (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2010). 1 being threatened with extinction. Freshwater fish also face serious threats, although these are more frequently due to problems of pollution or habitat degradation. Conservation is a subject with historical ramifications, both in terms of the construction of knowledge, and in tracking populations of organisms over time. I decided that there might be practical benefits to understanding the development of knowledge about fish, in order to aid conservationists interested in using historical records to understand more about what fish populations may have looked like in the past.2 These are the chief reasons I chose to write a history of the disciplinary development of ichthyology as my dissertation topic. A limited amount of material relating to the history of ichthyology does appear within the literature for the history of science, but very little of this material is specifically related to the development of ichthyology as a discipline. As a result, it is easier to find the relevant material for developing an initial narrative of ichthyology among the work of past and now living ichthyologists. For anyone wishing to cultivate an understanding of the history of ichthyology, the best place to begin is a history of ichthyology written by the early nineteenth century naturalist, Georges Cuvier. Although Cuvier originally wrote in French, his ichthyology history is available in English translation, thanks to the scholarly efforts of ichthyologist Theodore Pietsch.3 Cuvier’s own career, including his ichthyology history, serves as a useful foundation on which to build the story of the disciplinary development of ichthyology. When I started working on my dissertation in 2013, besides myself and Pietsch, few people were 2 When I was attending Scripps Institution of Oceanography and working on my master’s degree in Oceanography, there were two other graduate students at Scripps working on projects that involved examining historical records in order to gain a better understanding of changes in fish populations over the past couple of centuries. 3 Georges Cuvier, Historical Portrait of the Progress of Ichthyology form Its Origins to Our Own Time, Edited by Theodore W. Pietisch and translated by Abby J. Simpson (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995.) 2 currently working on extended projects in the history of ichthyology.4 In 2015, Paul Smith, a professor of French Literature at the University of Leiden initiated a research project focused on ichthyological literature, although his primary research interests are largely confined to early modern texts.5 Additionally, two Ph.D. students have been working under the auspices of Smith’s project. Sophia Hendrikx’s6 work focuses on the sixteenth century naturalist Conrad Gesner. Didi van Trijp’s7 dissertation is focused on the work of four prominent ichthyologists who wrote foundational texts over the course of the century and a half leading up to where my dissertation begins. With the exception of the subjects of ornithology and entomology, historians of science have paid little attention to the development of the zoological disciplines. Zoological histories require specialized knowledge and a tolerance of a literature focused on the monotonous accumulation of detailed information. Since so few histories such as these have been written, it is unclear that they will yield a significant intellectual payout. There is still some uncertainty regarding what constitutes a disciplinary history. The literature on disciplinary histories within the sciences is still quite modest, even though two 4 There is a very useful book that came out in 2012 after I entered the History of Science Program at OU and was still working on my master’s thesis. This book gave an account of the development of ichthyology in Australia and spans the nineteenth and early twentieth century. While this book is relevant to the development of ichthyology as a discipline, it is a work focused on colonial efforts. During the nineteenth century, European ichthyologists were still at the forefront of the disciplinary development of ichthyology.